


i'll never forget you.

by polaroidxpicture



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: AU, Angst, Character Death, Depressing, Sad, chloe is mentioned in passing again, this is an au i think i came up with myself?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:54:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23662672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polaroidxpicture/pseuds/polaroidxpicture
Summary: This is an Amberfield work based on an au I created that nearly mirrors canon. Chloe is the one who moves away, and though Max's dad doesn't die, she meets Rachel and falls for her instead. Hopefully, the context makes sense.
Relationships: Rachel Amber/Maxine "Max" Caulfield
Kudos: 23





	i'll never forget you.

_Something about those pictures seemed so wrong. Something was wrong._

Max couldn’t shake that thought. It swirled around her mind like smoke billowing from a chimney in the wind. The sense of urgency in her mind swiftly developed into a stomachache, and that coupled with the intense beating of her heart in her chest only intensified the feelings of anxiety.

_I have to find her. Surely to God, she’s okay._

She rushes to the one place she could think of, the little safe haven Rachel found for the two of them one fateful afternoon years ago. It simultaneously feels like yesterday and like it’s a moment from a thousand years ago, thinking back on it now. She runs with the urgency of someone outrunning a brutal storm, eyes feverishly searching for her beat-up old sedan. She finally stumbles up to it, hands shaking so badly that she can hardly unlock the doors, and when she’s on the road again, she’s barely paying attention to the world around her.

_Gotta get to the junkyard. There’s no time._

It feels like it takes hours to get to the junkyard, but it’s much closer to 10 minutes, and Max can hardly get out of the car fast enough once she parks. She thinks back to the image she founds, and, amidst shudders, finds where it was taken. Shaking fingers dig into the soft dirt, and the whole time, she feels like she’s going to vomit.

_Please don’t be here, Rachel. Please. You have to be alive. You have to._

She keeps digging until her fingers feel raw, and finally, fingertips meet something other than dirt and rocks. Max can barely make out what she’s found and continues to dig around it until more of it’s visible. **_God_** , does she regret it. The more she digs, the more she realizes that it looks a hell of a lot like the flannel Rachel was wearing the last time Max saw her. And then, finally, alongside the stench, a wave of intense nausea rolls over Max. It _is_ Rachel’s flannel. Oh, God. She can hardly contain the ragged sob that forces its way up her throat and out of her mouth, and all at once, it feels like the world is caving in around her.

_Nothing matters anymore. She’s dead. That’s her body, right there, rotting in a shallow grave._

Max doesn’t even realize she’s started crying until the collar of her shirt is wet and tear-stained, and she can hardly breathe around the tears. Rachel Amber was never like Chloe Price, but one of the beautiful things about her was that she never tried to be. She very quickly learned that Max was hurting, but never tried to replace what she had with Chloe. And now even _Rachel_ is gone, and maybe that just means that Max has done something wrong in her life to deserve such horrible pain. She lost her best friend and her first love in the span of 5 years, and though she’s done many things wrong in her life, surely none of them amounted to something so bad that she deserved _this._

_I was too late. She’s gone…_

Max sits at the edge of Rachel’s shallow grave until the sun dips behind the trees and there’s no light left in the sky. She cries until there aren’t tears left to cry, and she can’t help but selfishly wish that she could go back in time, reverse everything to when Rachel was alive and the world was okay. The things she’d do to hear Rachel’s laughter, such a beautiful thing that she took for granted. The way she already longs to hear Rachel’s voice again, because a life without Rachel Amber in it is hardly a life worth living, and what is the world without the brightness and beauty that Rachel brought into it anyway? All those pictures they took over the years, and Max still feels like there aren’t enough. Nothing could ever properly capture all that Rachel Amber was. There wasn’t a singular moment in the whole time they knew one another that Max could ever describe as her defining moment. There was no such thing as putting her into a box. Nothing she could ever say would be enough to explain all the ways that Rachel changed her life, or how every moment she spent with Rachel was another reason to keep fighting for her dreams. No one could ever properly put into words the things Max felt with Rachel. Rachel was an enigma in life, and she’d be an enigma in death. And maybe that was the only word that would ever really describe her. Max could list a million more, like _stunning_ or _captivating_ or _effervescent_ even, but none of them every truly captured her essence. That’s all she has now, though. Words that’ll never be good enough.


End file.
